For many years high chairs have been used to introduce a degree of comfort in feeding infants and small children. This item of children's furniture is characterized by a small, child-sized chair that is mounted on long legs to bring the level of a child, sitting in the chair, up to the level of a seated adult in order to enable the adult to feed the child with comfort to both. A horizontally disposed tray is mounted, usually above the seat portion of the high chair, to extend across the child's lap. Food, eating utensils, and the like, ordinarily are placed on the tray to assist the adult in feeding the child and to train the child to feed itself. Frequently, these trays are hinged, pivoted or mounted on horizontally sliding supports to move the tray away from the child and make it easier to remove the child from the high chair.
For additional safety it also is common to attach a strap to the chair structure in order to keep the child from climbing, falling or sliding out of the chair.
These conventional high chairs, however, still leave a great deal to be desired.
For example, a typical high chair occupies additional floorspace in the dining area, thereby tending to crowd the dining area with a piece of furniture that has no other use than to accommodate an infant at meal times. Consequently, when not in use at meal times, a high chair is an obstacle to routine cleaning activity and other ordinary movement through the dining area.
The straps that are attached to the usual high chair, moreover, permit the infant to sway from side-to-side. This can be dangerous because the child's swaying might cause the high chair, with its high center of gravity, to tip over and, possibly, injure the infant.
There is a further and equally serious inadequacy, albeit quite subtle, in prior art high chairs. Thus, the shapes of these chairs make no concession to the shape of the occupying child's body. Those designs, moreover, that do provide the chair portion with seat and back cushions are dominated in shape and location either by esthetics or by manufacturing convenience, with no thought to the comfort and physical well-being of the occupying infant.
These prior art high chairs also are quite inflexible in that they do not permit adjustments to be made with respect to the position of the chair portion relative to the balance of the high chair structure. The trays on these high chairs, as mentioned above, are movable relative to the chair structure. To move these trays, either away from the chair in order to place a child in the chair, or into a horizontal position preparatory to feeding the child require the adult to use both hands to manipulate the tray in an appropriate manner. This can be very awkward and inconvenient, especially if the adult is, as it often happens, holding the child, or the child's food, at the same time.